Arts-based Research Research Articles

Turbulence: Arts-based participatory action research on the experience of creative arts therapists and creatives who identify as Black and people of colour

Following the production of Turbulence, an original play featuring the experiences of creative arts therapists and creatives who identify as Black and people of colour (BPOC), members of the ensemble agreed to engage in an arts-based participatory action research process in which co-researchers drew on dramatic, visual, musical and poetic forms of inquiry to ask themselves about the realities and hopes faced by this community and the environmental conditions that would support their movement, growth and mobility. Findings emphasized the value and necessity of creative affinity groups together with sustainable structural, financial and relational support to encourage the hopes and dreams of BPOC students and professionals.

Art‐based perceptual ecology

Much discussion and effort have been directed toward developing a more diverse membership at the Ecological Society of America (ESA) and other professional scientific societies. To better meet diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals, these societies must expand their views of diversity, yielding broader participation in the sciences. I am the founder of and research director at Citizen Artist, a participatory science research platform employing art-based perceptual ecology (ABPE) research methodologies to study ecological systems change. At Citizen Artist, we honor multiple ways of knowing – exploring and investigating differently; engaging in unbounded curiosity, imagination, and creativity; and embracing holistic, integrative approaches to scientific practice and thinking. We offer alternative methodologies, tools, and field practices – non-conventional approaches that attract underrepresented populations to participate in science. Extending the parameters of how ecologists conduct field-based science may bolster participation and lead to unexpected and revolutionary solutions for our most pressing issues, such as the impacts of climate change, loss of habitat, and biodiversity decline. Duly note, Citizen Artist is an approved scientific content provider for ESA's Professional Certified Ecologist Program. In the early 1990s, during my graduate studies in art therapy, I was introduced to art-based research (ABR) methodologies, which originated in the social sciences and were designed to work with a human population. I recognized they could have great potential and application to more than human populations. Simultaneous with pursuing a PhD in environmental studies, I envisioned how I could expand ABR methods and frame them within ecological and biological principles to serve field-based scientific research. Through an iterative process, I developed a new methodology and set of tools responding to applied questions within the natural sciences, specifically in studying environmental change. The evolution of this process resulted in the birth of ABPE research methodologies. Historically, ecologists have discussed the need to include interdisciplinarity within our professional practice. At Citizen Artist, we engage in a transdisciplinary approach to science practices – weaving together multiple disciplines’ perspectives, theories, and methods, transcending their traditional boundaries to generate knowledge and a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness of all life. When creating and collecting data in the field using ABPE methods, the researcher engages in art-based inquiry through a kinesthetic act of “making with the hands” in which neural connections are established and knowledge is constructed. Grounded in multimodal knowledge systems and sensory-based learning, ABPE data communicate through multiple “languages” to tell the land’s story, including the visual language of mark making or drawing, and the languages of metaphor and symbol. Using the visual language at the inquiry stage of scientific thinking has historical ties: consider these connections to important discoveries, such as Galileo's drawings of the moon, or Maria Sibylla Merian's paintings of insect metamorphosis. According to ABPE methods, both the process and the product hold equal value. The art-making process offers a springboard for new insight and questions to arise, ones that had not been considered previously as the information was not yet available. The art product (data) concretizes original knowledge; provides context and frames of reference; and deepens the researcher's understanding of ecological phenomena. The data do not offer finality, but rather a turn in the conversation that often leads to more questions than answers. At Citizen Artist, we are building a diverse, global community trained in best practices within a transdisciplinary research framework, to mutually learn from and explore new pathways to address current ecological challenges. Since the summer of 2020, I have taught an online course, “Introduction to Citizen Artist and Art-Based Research Methods”, offering training in ABPE methodologies for field-based practices and increasing access to science for underserved populations. To date, more than 120 individuals – including researchers, educators, and doctoral and master's students hailing from 14 countries and 22 states – have taken the course, 95% of whom belong to science disciplines (within which 15% are interdisciplinary) and 3% of whom are in the arts. Each of these individuals is working with a larger constituency of stakeholders at universities, government agencies, NGOs, and Indigenous communities. Contrary to our name, there is no need for artistic skills to take the class or engage in ABPE. In conclusion, I believe integrative approaches to science diversify and strengthen the field. Including transdisciplinary approaches to both scientific practices and ways of thinking opens the field to communities of creative co-collaborators, expanding the boundaries of scientific innovation and transformative solutions. For more information on Citizen Artist programs, visit www.citizen-artist.com.

Aesthetic responses to the COVID-19 pandemic: The corona performance No Problama

This article highlights the artistic project No Problama, which was created during the COVID-19 crisis. The discussion takes its point of departure in revisiting the project, aiming to discover new meanings and more profound understanding when explored one year after completion. The investigation is inspired by international research on the function of art during the COVID-19 pandemic. The article includes references to art and music projects published in 2020 as creative, aesthetic responses, which reflected how people worldwide used artistic expressions to release fear and anxiety during the first months of the lockdown. The No Problama project was developed from August 2020 to May 2021 as a primary school and university collaboration in a small city close to the University of Agder in Kristiansand, Norway. The project exemplifies what was later referred to as "corona-music" or "corona-art". It is discussed as an aesthetic response to the COVID-19 pandemic using approaches from arts-based research. A retrospective exploration made it evident that the No Problama artistic expressions became representations of COVID-19-pandemic aesthetics. Thus, the project illustrates one path of intervention between art and crisis in a specific context where each component was developed and tailored to a situation affected by strict national health regulations.

South Korean art therapists’ roundtable discussion on racism and ethnic discrimination: An arts-based inquiry

The purpose of this artistic inquiry is to explore racism and ethnic discrimination from both majority and minority perspectives. Four Korean female art therapy practitioners and students who temporarily lived in the United States (US) before returning to Korea share their lived experiences vividly through an arts-based roundtable discussion. Along with the cultural component of their experiences of racism and ethnic discrimination within the context of the US and Korea, the discussion reveals parallel experiences of the authors in their shifted positions as part of the racial minority and majority in the US and Korea, respectively. The authors also discuss visual self-reflexivity as an appropriate pedagogical frame to train creative arts therapists.

Book Review: Art as Witness: A Practical Theology of Arts-Based Research by Helen T. Boursier

Book Review: <i>Art as Witness: A Practical Theology of Arts-Based Research</i> by Helen T. Boursier

Let there be a “We”: introducing an ethics of collective academic care

PurposeThis study aims to think critically about collaborative working through the practical application of an ethics of care approach. The authors address the following research questions: How can the authors embed an ethics of care into academic collaboration? What are the benefits and challenges of this kind of collaborative approach? The contextual focus also incorporates a collective sense making of academic identities over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.Design/methodology/approachThe authors focus on the activities of the “Consumer Research with Impact for Society” collective at and around the 2021 Academy of Marketing conference. The authors draw on the insights and labour of the group in terms of individual and collaborative reflexivity, workshops and the development of a collaborative poem.FindingsFirst, the authors present the “web of words” as the adopted approach to collaborative writing. Second, the authors consider the broader takeaways that have emerged from the collaboration in relation to blurring of boundaries, care in collaboration and transformations.Originality/valueThe overarching contribution of the paper is to introduce an Ethics of Collective Academic Care. The authors discuss three further contributions that emerged as central in its operationalisation: arts-based research, tensions and conflicts and structural issues. The application of the “web of words” approach also offers a template for an alternative means of engaging with, and representing, those involved in the research.

Innovative Fibreglass Mobile Sink Basin: An Intervention for Hand Washing in an Era of Pandemics

The purpose of the study was to undertake an innovative project of producing a mobile sink basin from fibreglass as an intervention for hand washing in Ghana. The qualitative research approach with the arts-based descriptive research design guided the study. Fifty-five (55) study participants in the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana were purposively sampled to evaluate the project in the context of handwashing in this era of pandemics. Data were primarily gathered via semi-structured interviews, observations and photographs. Detailed account on the tools and materials as well as the procedural steps for the production of the innovative fibreglass mobile sink by meticulously following the rules in arts-based descriptive research design. The qualitative data were analysed using the qualitative thematic analysis. The study found that the fibreglass mobile sink would be useful for handwashing and proper hand hygiene at homes, schools, healthcare facilities, workplaces, and marketplaces to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. In the face of the global COVID-19 pandemic and future pandemics, the study suggests the scaling up of this innovative mobile sink due to its convenience, cost-effectiveness, accessibility and portability that would encourage the Ghanaian citizenry to practice handwashing. The study recommends that the Ghana government via the Ministry of Health in Ghana should seek for funding avenues to support the mass production of this innovative project. Also, the Ministry of Health must collaborate with higher education institutions in organizing and funding projects of staff and students targeted at arresting the daunting health-related issues such as handwashing to curb the spread of infectious diseases.

Bio-techno-signature Monitoring and Communication Guideposts for Extraterrestrial Life

Attendees at the First Penn State SETI Symposium collaborated to develop guideposts for monitoring for and communicating with extraterrestrial life. Over the course of six hours of moderated, dialogic, art-based inquiry in 2022 June, four foundational questions catalyzed the creation of a set of ethics-informed guideposts: Who speaks for Earth, and who should speak for Earth?; What can be communicated, and what is communicated?; What should be communicated?; and How can it be communicated? The 10 resulting parameters offer ethical navigation for examining bio- and techno-markers.

Citizen Science - a new field for the arts?

Pamela Bartar’s (Center for Didactics of Art and Interdisciplinary Education) contribution "Citizen Science – a new field for the arts?" links Citizen Science with art-based research. Providing an overview of current approaches, Bartar illustrates how contemporary art can significantly contribute to the democratisation of science and the societal proximity of research, particularly focusing on socially engaged practices and collaborative knowledge production.

Migrant families and Children’s inclusion in culturally diverse educational contexts in Spain

This paper builds on the European project MiCREATE, which aimed to explore and stimulate migrant children and youth reception and inclusion in educational and social systems by adopting a child-centred approach at educational practice and policy levels. We focus on the role of the students’ local and immigrant families in this often-challenging process. We have evidence of the vital role of families in children and youth education. However, research mainly focuses on teachers when discussing issues related to the reception and inclusion of migrant students in schools, often forgetting that families and children/youth are also critical elements in these processes. In this project, we have explored the roles expected and developed by local and foreign families in facilitating and accompanying schools and students on these not-always-easy paths using various methods and activities. This paper focuses on aspects of the MiCREATE project related to the crucial role of families in their children’s social and educational experiences in the host country. It is based on fieldwork carried out in 16 schools in Spain, including teachers, families, students, educational community members and policymakers. Art-based research methods, open-ended interviews and focus groups provided a broad picture of the different views and expectations of all those involved in formal education. From the thematic analysis of the participants’ contributions, results emerge around two main focuses: (1) difficulties migrant families face in getting involved in school life, such as cultural clashes, school segregation, migrant families’ environment and the difference between primary school and secondary schools; (2) more general and specific initiatives that facilitate migrant family involvement in school life.

Pioneering Virtual Body Mapping: A Methodological Guide for Researchers Using a Health-Affected Population as an Example

&lt;i&gt;The rapidity of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing recognition of post-acute sequela of COVID-19 (PASC) or long COVID-19 has created a need to understand the experience of those suffering from this long-term sequela. The purpose of this research was to explore, and uplift lived experiences of patients with long COVID-19. This study had a total sample of 19 participants with long COVID-19 engaged in body mapping, an arts-based research method. Describing the novel virtual adaptations to the body mapping methodology is the focus of this article. The material presented provides researchers with a methodological road map by outlining the virtual adaptations in the preparation and facilitation of the body mapping process, sharing lessons learned in data collection, highlighting considerations for future studies, and summarizing the impact of the findings. &lt;/i&gt;&lt;i&gt;Virtual body mapping sessions acted as powerful and emotional events where participants showed true vulnerability describing their experiences with COVID-19, their journey as a long hauler, their places of personal strength and courage, and their dreams for the future. Participants were highly engaged and interested in sharing their art with the broader community. &lt;/i&gt;&lt;i&gt;Virtual body mapping is a novel approach to conducting qualitative research in a unique setting and can provide an opportunity for innovative knowledge dissemination activities. While this method may contribute to increased participation and engagement, it may also present challenges, such as lessened accountability and interaction. &lt;/i&gt;

Visualizing climate change: Here we come to save the day!

Art educators teach visual literacy, criticism, multiple art media and technical skills representing many pupils’ only exposure to visual communication in school. Given curricular flexibility, art teachers redesign lessons to include important conceptual learning to accommodate department of education guidance addressing potentially controversial issues. Authentic art-integrative approaches provide opportunities for students and communities to interrogate serious issues like global warming and the impact of anthropogenic climate change. While not all teachers embrace this and other difficult conceptual learning, professional development and a supportive community of stakeholders are key for those who do. The following article presents a theoretical framework supporting a unit on an art-based inquiry into environmental justice from a recent course on social justice art education. Graduate student artist inspirations, art exemplars and learning activities are shared to inspire others towards art actionism.

Social action art therapy and the enhancement of political imagination

This article provides research-informed insights on the use of social action art therapy within the context of working with diverse communities to imagine future responses to climate crisis at a local level. We present creative responses produced by participants of a study conducted within a community arts space. The work described is inspired by the work of art therapist Savneet Talwar and social ecologist Murray Bookchin. The creative responses come in the form of photographs of objects made by participants and sets of statements that emerged when these objects were used to initiate conversations about the imagined future of the city that participants were located within. This article’s aim is to evaluate the role of social action art therapy and art-based research within the context of the enhancing of collective political imagination in the service of democratically decided and socially just adaptations to climate crisis.

Creative Arts‐based Research in Aged care: Photovoice, Photography and Poetry in Action. E.Miller, Routledge, New York, 2021. ISBN 9780367686376 (pbk). $81.99. https://www.routledge.com/Creative‐Arts‐Based‐Research‐in‐Aged‐Care‐Photovoice‐Photography‐and‐Poetry/Miller/p/book/9780367686376

Australasian Journal on AgeingVolume 42, Issue 1 p. 261-261 BOOK REVIEW Creative Arts-based Research in Aged care: Photovoice, Photography and Poetry in Action. E. Miller, Routledge, New York, 2021. ISBN 9780367686376 (pbk). $81.99. https://www.routledge.com/Creative-Arts-Based-Research-in-Aged-Care-Photovoice-Photography-and-Poetry/Miller/p/book/9780367686376 Luella Monson, Corresponding Author Luella Monson [email protected] La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, AustraliaSearch for more papers by this author Luella Monson, Corresponding Author Luella Monson [email protected] La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, AustraliaSearch for more papers by this author First published: 30 March 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/ajag.13182Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume42, Issue1March 2023Pages 261-261 RelatedInformation

Breathing Room: Working Principles of Independent Art Spaces in African Cities

Breathing Room: Working Principles of Independent Art Spaces in African Cities

The innovative essence of the El Duende one-canvas method

The innovative essence of El Duende one-canvas process painting (EDPP) is in the ongoing experience of having continual encounters with change processes on one surface over time. The dynamic between what stays and what is lost is explored from multiple perspectives. Progressive photographs reflect a visual sequence of transformative states for therapists, clients and trainees to experientially learn through their own art processes. Subsequent research explored the impacts of this unique process, guided by art-informed discovery and the primacy of an artist’s vision. Five phases and four core elements of the paradoxical method emerged as scaffolding to explore the inevitability of change. The use of art-based research is central to each phase of the practice discoveries described. The importance of one-canvas process painting is highlighted in relation to reflective practice in art therapy. The approach’s contributions towards art-based supervision and as an ongoing form of response art are also considered.

Understanding emerging from interspecies relations: Horses, pigs, insect hotels, peat bogs in artistic practices, inquiries and processes of becoming to understand in research-writing

This thematic issue of Research in Arts and Education focuses on exploring research with species other than humans. In the original call, my co-editor Helena Sederholm and I named animals, plants, lichen, moss, and fungi as possible others, or rather partners with whom the carried out artistic and arts-based research could be carried out. The first volume of this special issue was published in 2022. Almost a year later, we publish this second volume that has a particular emphasis on the contradictory, paradoxical relations humans have with other species, the natural processes that are part of human life as well as with the conflicting and exploitative relations humans have built with particular species or places. The authors focus on personally built relationships and encounters with individual living or dead animals, while other authors bring attention to and investigate culturally built notions and contradictory practices that have become normative, dominant practices or perceptions. These articles and visual essays are characterized by posthumanist and postmaterialist orientations and although their strategies and approaches for research and art practices vary, their orientation can be characterized to be driven by exploratory criticality as well as deep reflection guided by sensitivity to arts and other epistemic traditions. As such, they are deeply involved in modes of increasing understanding with and through art.

Blackness preferred, queerness deferred: navigating sense of belonging in Black male initiative and men of color mentorship programs

This research focused on Black gay, bisexual, and queer men (BGBQM) and addressed the nuanced ways BGBQM experienced a sense of belonging within mentorship program settings, given their intersecting identities. Utilizing a novel research design that blended aspects of phenomenology and arts-based research, this study explored the following research questions: (1) How do BGBQM experience a sense of belonging in Black Male Initiatives (BMI) and Men of Color (MoC) mentorship programs? (2) What formative experiences do BGBQM develop in belonging to these mentorship program environments? Findings revealed approaches to how BGBQM experienced Blackness and queerness within mentorship programs in higher education settings. Being immersed in traditionally heteronormative enclaves, these men found solace in racial belonging yet experienced isolation due to their sexuality. This work provides key insight into addressing the pervasive ways mentorship programs need to dismantle heteronormativity and hypermasculine norms and ideals.

Practising Freedom

From 2018 – 2022, Dr Collins and Act for Change undertook a series of community arts-based research projects in James Town, Accra. These projects were designed to engage with survivors of modern slavery in the James Town community and, using performance, bring their stories to a local audience with the aim of building collective resilience to combat modern slavery. One of the key areas of enquiry to emerge from the project was the function and dynamics of Act for Change’s theatre space, the James Town Community Theatre Centre (JTCT). Founded in 2011 in a former boxing gym, the JTCT sits within the bustling centre of James Town and over the past decade has become known in the community as a vibrant arts venue. In this article, we discuss how the JTCT’s geographical and cultural position within the community, and its physical layout, enhanced the overall research project. Engaging with Foucault’s definition of heterotopias, we position the JTCT as a space that reflects the specific dynamics of the community, where complex and sometimes painful topics can be brought forward, engaged with and discussed.

Crip Time and Radical Care in/as Artful Politics

This article brings together critical disability scholarship and personal narrative, sharing the author’s pandemic story of disruption, caregiving, grief, burnout, cancer, and post-operative fatigue. It offers critical reflection on the limits of the neoliberal academy and possibilities for practicing liberatory politics within it, posing two central questions: What does it mean to crip time and centre care as an arts-based researcher? What might a commitment to honouring crip time based on radical care do for the author and their scholarship, and for others aspiring to conduct reworlding research? This analysis suggests that while committing to “slow scholarship” is a form of resistance to ableist capitalist and colonial pressures within the academy, slowness alone does not sufficiently crip research processes. Crip time, by contrast, involves multiply enfolded temporalities imposed upon (and reclaimed by) many researchers, particularly those living with disabilities and/or chronic illness. The article concludes that researchers can commit to recognizing crip time, valuing it, and caring for those living through it, including themselves, not only/necessarily by slowing down. Indeed, they can also carry out this work by actively imagining the crip futures they are striving to make along any/all trajectories and temporalities. This means simultaneously transforming academic institutions, refusing internalized pressures, reclaiming interdependence, and valuing all care work in whatever time it takes.